‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ Canceled As Lucasfilm Promises ‘New Direction’ And A New Series [VIDEO]

The popular “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” animated series has been canceled. The Star Wars-based animated series has run for five seasons and Lucasfilm announced Monday on its website the cancellation of the series.

Fans of "The Clone Wars" series and “Star Wars” should not worry too much as Lucasfilm Animation promises a new series. In a statement on its website, Lucasfilm said it is "exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or television programming. You can expect more details in the months to come.”

Lucasfilm is no longer producing new episodes of “The Clone Wars” for Cartoon Network, but said there will be bonus content featuring new adventures and story arcs and that details will be announced in the coming months on how this new material will be released.

For Lucasfilm, ending “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” was simply a matter of feeling “the time has come to wind down the series.” The other animated “Star Wars” project, “Star Wars Detour,” has been postponed, according to Lucasfilm.

“Star Wars Detour” was to be a comedic animated series created by Seth Green, Matthew Senreich and Todd Grimes. Green and Senreich have worked together on “Robot Chicken” as well as the “Star Wars” parody episodes of the show, while Grimes has been a director and supervisor on “Back to the Barnyard.” According to Lucasfilm, “Star Wars Detour” was “Conceived and produced before we decided to move forward with the new Star Wars trilogy, and in the wake of that decision, Lucasfilm has reconsidered whether launching an animated comedy prior to the launch of Episode VII makes sense. As a result, we've decided to postpone the release of Detours until a later date.”

While “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” has seen plenty of success on Cartoon Network, the next animated “Star Wars” series may be featured on a channel that Disney, who acquired Lucasfilm and the “Star Wars” franchise in October, owns. According to Brooks Barnes, from the Media Decoder blog on the New York Times, the next “Star Wars” series could be featured on the Disney XD channel, and could be a cornerstone series that might improve ratings for the cable channel.

A video from “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” supervising director Dave Diloni can be viewed below. Diloni discusses what’s in store for “Clone Wars” as it heads to the series finale.